


Do Not Touch Him (for the love of God)

by Briar_Rose7



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: And the Lady God said, LET THERE BE ANGST, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 22:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19755208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briar_Rose7/pseuds/Briar_Rose7
Summary: Agnes wrote no prophecy concerning Aziraphale and Crowley's fate, so when Heaven and Hell came for them, they were not prepared to fight back.





	Do Not Touch Him (for the love of God)

**Author's Note:**

> My first Ineffable Husbands fic! I swear this pairing has hit me with the force of a truck, and now it's holding my heart and brain hostage. I can't think of anything else.  
> Yes, the title comes from the tumblr-famous quote: _You can break my soul, take my life away, beat me, hurt me, kill me, but for the love of God don't touch him._  
>  Infinite thanks to my beta [simonspierisapeanut](https://simonspierisapeanut.tumblr.com)

After helping stop Armageddon, Aziraphale and Crowley had known that Heaven and Hell were not happy with them. They’d been expecting some kind of retribution. They’d just not expected things to go this bad this quickly. Crowley had thought he was being careful, keeping an attentive eye on their surroundings, but one moment they were buying ice creams in the park, and the next they were being attacked from all sides. Oh, they’d tried to put on a fight, but they were just an angel and a demon against the joined forces of Heaven and Hell; they’d never stood a chance. Still, Crowley had done his best (worst?) to try and stop them from carrying his angel away, and the furious pounding in his head reminded him of just how many times they’d had to hit him before he finally stopped fighting.

Now he was standing in Hell, undergoing a trial that had no purpose other than to expose his betrayal to the other demons, and he would have honestly been a lot calmer about the whole thing if only he had known that Aziraphale was safe. In a way, he’d always known that this was coming, that his life would end the moment Hell found out about him and his angel. He just hoped that Heaven would be more forgiving, even though it really didn’t have a great history of being such a thing. He wondered if, right in that moment, Aziraphale was being Damned, stripped of his status as an Angel and plummeted to Hell. Crowley had never truly fit in Hell, but for Aziraphale it would be pure torture. He had done nothing but be kind and compassionate, and he shouldn’t be punished for that.

Crowley wasn’t surprised when he was sentenced to death; he was, however, extremely shocked to see Michael walking in, with a jug full of Holy Water.

“Where is he? Where is Aziraphale?” he asked immediately, and even though he was staring death in the face he had to admit that there was an exhilarating freedom to this, to being able to openly show his concern for his angel in front of everybody else.

“Funny that you ask that. He was asking about you the whole time as we dragged him back to Heaven,” Michael replied with a sickening smile.

“ _What are you doing to him_?” Crowley hissed, clenching his fists in frustration and wondering if he’d manage to punch Michael in the face before being killed by the Holy Water. Unfortunately, the answer was probably no.

Michael pulled out a thing that looked a lot like a human smartphone, and from the way she spoke into it, it was clear that she was calling someone up in Heaven. One moment later, an old tv screen that Crowley hadn’t even noticed lit up, showing the vast, empty expanse of Heaven, and Aziraphale standing with his hands tied between Gabriel and Sandalphon.

Crowley called the angel’s name just as Aziraphale called his. They stared at each other, trying and failing to find the right words to say, when two things happened: behind Crowley’s back, Michael started pouring the Holy Water into a tub, while in Heaven a demon - which Crowley hadn’t noticed up until then - summoned a column of demonic fire.

The horror Crowley felt rising in himself was only comparable to the one he saw on Aziraphale’s face. All of their worst fears were becoming real, but while his angel seemed paralyzed by this, by being ultimately unable to protect Crowley, the demon had simply no more reason to contain his fury. He had nothing more to lose.

“You BASTARDS!” he screamed at the angels, first at the ones in the screen, and then at Michael. “He’s one of yours. You should be better than this.”

“ _He_ should have been better. He should have _known_ better, known that _consorting_ with you could only lead to this.”

“But you… you _can’t_ …” He was at a loss, scrambling for the miraculous words that would convince them to stop this madness, when Aziraphale’s voice calling his name brought his attention back to the screen. Crowley looked at him, begging, maybe even _praying_ that he’d find the right words, that he’d give him hope and help him find a way out of this.

“It’s over,” Aziraphale said instead, shaking his head in defeat. That hurt Crowley more than anything the demons had done to him that day; he felt his breath leave his lungs, and he had to clench his fists to stop his hands from trembling. There was no hope.

“I just wish I had listened to you,” Aziraphale went on, doing his best to keep his voice from breaking. “We should have gone to Alpha Centauri when we had the chance. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

Somehow, in the sheer tragedy of it all, an old, happier memory resurfaced in Crowley’s mind.

“You’re an angel. I don’t think you can be wrong,” he said, determined to make his angel see that it was not his fault, and it could never be.

Aziraphale went through a lot of emotions very quickly, and Crowley could see them all on the expressive face he had grown to know so well. There was shock in there, and then tenderness, and _despair_ and regret and, finally, determination.

“I love you.”

The angels gasped in shock while the demons snickered in the background, and yet Crowley heard nothing of all of it. All he could see was Aziraphale, _his angel_ , and his eyes full of sadness and honesty and love. It hurt. It hurt more than Holy Water ever could, because it was real and it was wonderful and it was _too late_.

“No!” he screamed, letting out his wings as he all but threw himself at Hastur, showing him out of the way as he desperately, foolishly tried to make a run for it. He would give them a fight. He would give them _hell_ for taking everything away from him. He kept on screaming, calling Aziraphale, cursing Heaven and Hell alike, but all of his rage could do nothing against the sheer force of numbers. Someone pushed him towards the tub, and when the back of his legs hit the edge of it he lost his balance. As he fell backwards towards his death, he glanced back at the screen showing Heaven, and saw the angels pushing Aziraphale towards the fire. He hoped he’d die before he could hear Aziraphale scream. He hoped he’d make enough of a splash for the water to hit Dagon or maybe Beelzebub; someone _had_ to pay for this. He closed his eyes, plummeting towards the water as he’d once plummeted towards Hell, and braced himself for the pain.

Except the pain never came. He fell into the tub ungracefully, hitting his nape on the edge, Holy Water splashing around and soaking him from head to toe in a second, and yet as the ripples and waves calmed down he sat in the tub, unscathed. For a moment, he was too shocked to fully realize what was going on. Demons were screaming in terror and rage all around him, accusing Michael of tricking them, but they _knew_ there was no trick. They’d seen the Holy Water work, they’d tested it to make sure. Crowley was simply _immune_ to it, and Hastur seemed to be having a stroke.

After taking a moment to make sure that he really wasn’t hallucinating, Crowley gathered all of his courage and dared glance at what was going on in Heaven. It would have been the top of cruelty for him to survive only to see Aziraphale burning, but his angel was standing just fine in the fire, looking at him with the same shock Crowley felt.

There was a beat of silence, and then Crowley started laughing. A hysterical, almost crazy laugh, of adrenaline and relief and disbelief. Aziraphale joined him, still burning in the fire just like Crowley was still soaking in Holy Water. This was a Miracle. Not a miracle, they’d done hundreds, no, _thousands_ of those, but not even with their powers combined could they have ever done something one tenth as powerful as this. This was a Miracle, the kind only God could make, and for some reason She needed them alive. Crowley realized it with shocking clarity, and he was sure that angels and demons were slowly coming to the same realization as well. No one would touch them now. They were safe, and they’d be for a long time.

“Well, as lovely as the company here is, I’m afraid I have to go now. Angel, meet me at our third alternative rendezvous. I trust you remember which one it is,” Crowley said, stepping out of the tub. All demons, including the ones protected behind the glass, stepped back in fear as he dripped Holy Water all around. Michael, the only one who could have at least tried to stop him, looked rather mutinous, but wise enough not to try anything. There were times when even an Archangel had to take a hint.

They arrived at the bandstand at the same time, but from opposite sides. Seeing Aziraphale’s familiar silhouette from afar made Crowley feel too many things at once, none of which particularly demonic. Relief. Happiness. But also trepidation, a nervousness he wouldn’t have been able to explain or describe if asked. He tried to tone it down, to keep a cool facade, but he felt his legs moving faster almost on their own volition, and by the time he and Aziraphale finally reached each other he was almost running. His angel had done the same, and now they were standing at the center of the bandstand, having nearly run into each other, with barely any space between them, nearly touching but not quite. The air between them felt like a barrier, one that, for a few tense moments, they were too afraid to break. They stared at each other, taking in the ruffled hair, the bruises, all the marks of the battle they’d fought and come out of alive.

It was Aziraphale who broke the tension. He lunged forward, doing one thing that, in over six thousand years of friendship, he’d never done: he hugged Crowley. He wrapped his arms around his demon, hands running almost furiously along his back, his arms, as if to check that he was real, that he was alive and as unscathed as he looked. Crowley froze at first, unable to fully process what was happening, but his angel’s hands were so soft and gentle against his skin (and oh, how he hated his jacked for being in the way) that he didn’t care anymore about keeping up his facade. He all but melted in Aziraphale’s embrace, wrapping his arms around his angel and sighing softly as he buried his face against his neck. He had known for a long time how nice Aziraphale smelled, but up close it was simply intoxicating. He wanted to stay buried in his arms like this forever.

“You’re alive,” Aziraphale whispered against his ear, and it was with horror that Crowley realized his angel was crying. “When I saw the Holy Water I thought… I feared…” he couldn’t say it, he couldn’t even quite wrap his mind around it, around the horror that he had felt when all of his worst fears had suddenly seemed to come true, but Crowley understood nonetheless, because he had felt the same.

Aziraphale sobbed quietly into his shoulder for a while, and when he eventually pulled back minutes or hours or centuries later he tried to smile, but there was tension in his eyes.

“You remember what I said right before they tried to kill us?” he started off hesitantly, and Crowley felt his heart break a little, steeling himself for rejection, expecting Aziraphale to take a step back, to say that fear made him say too much, go too fast.

“I meant those words. Truly. And I wanted to know if… if you feel the same.”

 _Of course I do_ , Crowley thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, actually. He just stood there, gaping at his angel and trying to form words, but only coming up with inarticulate sounds. After all this time, all this longing, all this fear, he wasn’t sure he could cope with this. The fact that he had spent centuries if not millennia waiting for this moment didn’t mean he was in any way ready for it. So he nodded, slowly, as if he didn’t quite remember how the movement was supposed to work, but for Aziraphale it was enough. He closed the distance between them once more, but this time he went for Crowley’s lips. 

Crowley had been sure that tub full of Holy Water would kill him. He had been wrong. This, _this_ was going to kill him. Kissing Aziraphale was everything he’d imagined and even more; sure, it was awkward and a bit messy at first, but it was like coming home, like finally being at peace with the other half of his soul. There was nothing angelic in the way Aziraphale kissed him; it was hungry and passionate, and the thought made him smile against his angel’s lips.

“Could you give me a lift back to your apartment?” Aziraphale asked some time later, as they walked through the park hand in hand.

“I thought I went too fast for you,” Crowley replied, only half-joking. He had always been the one to offer Aziraphale rides and a place to stay. Now, with their roles suddenly reversed, he needed to be sure.

“Not anymore, my dear. Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> You didn't really think I'd kill them, did you? It might be cheesy to have God straight up save them, but "angst with a happy ending" is my middle name and I LIVE for cheesy tropes. I have no regrets.  
> For the record, you can find me on tumblr as [sarashouldbestudying](https://sarashouldbestudying.tumblr.com)


End file.
